It's a nice day for a Net wedding: Macom buys Applied Micro Circuits

Connectivity collaborators Macom and Applied Micro Circuits have decided to tie the knot, with Macom laying out US$770 million in cash and shares to seal the deal.

In September, the two companies got together with BrPhotonics to show off a 100 Gbps pulse amplitude modulation (PAM4) module running on a single wavelength.

Macom reckons technologies like that, along with APM's other networking kit (Ethernet and optical transport), fit well enough to justify the acquisition; another chunk of APM that makes ARM-based server processors, will be sold off.

The compute business pulls in $165 million of revenue compared to $99 million for the networking products, and that leaves the company confident it could put the sale through within 180 days.

In particular the PAM4 products fit well with Macom's photonics products to create data-centre-targeted products that reach from the switch to the fibre.

“Macom will now be able to provide all the requisite semiconductor content for optical networks -- analog, photonic and PHY -- from the switch to fiber for long haul, metro, access, backhaul and Data Center. AppliedMicro's 100G to 400G single-lambda PAM4 platform should perfectly complement MACOM's leadership in analog and photonic components for Data Centers”, said Macom president and CEO John Croteau. ®